Description

THE PERFECT GIFT FOR ALL BIBLIOMANES

A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, SPECTATOR AND DAILY MAIL

AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4 WOMAN’S HOUR AND START THE WEEK

Plunge into this rich, surprising and stunningly designed A-Z compendium to discover how our fixations have taken shape, from the Middle Ages to the present day, as bestselling author Kate Summerscale deftly traces the threads between the past and present, the psychological and social, the personal and the political.

‘Fascinating … Phobias and manias create a magical space between us and the world’ Malcolm Gaskill, author of the No. 1 bestseller The Ruin of All Witches

‘Fascinating’ Observer

‘An endlessly intriguing book … All the bibliomanes (book nutters) I know will love it’ Daily Mail

Publisher Review

A new book from Summerscale is always a treat. She does vast amounts of research, and then manages to let go of it, and take flight in prose that is both forensic and conversational ... Summerscale has again found herself bewitched by what Gerard Manley Hopkins called 'All things counter, original, spare, strange'. Her sub-title - 'A History of the World in 99 Obsessions' - might echo Neil MacGregor, but this reads more like a book by Oliver Sacks, with dashes of Roald Dahl -- Maggie Fergusson * Spectator * Every phobia and mania makes us think about ourselves differently. I am sure this book will cause a 'mania' of its own. Thought-provoking and such fun -- Ian Mortimer, bestselling author of The Time Traveller's Guides [An] entertaining compendium of manias, phobias and compulsions ... its tales are judiciously chosen, its factoids toothsome * The Times * Fascinating... Exquisitely detailed and consistently insightful, this is an entertaining guide to humanity's compulsions * Publishers Weekly * 99 hard-to-stop-reading histories ... from the familiar (homophobia) to surprising fears of eggs, hair, silence and everything (pantophobia) * Chicago Tribune * Informative, witty, and unique... Summerscale, author of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher and other well-regarded books, lists 99 fears and compulsions, and the result is a peculiarly engaging book * Kirkus * Praise for Kate Summerscale: Summerscale's brilliance lies not only in recognising the power of a particular story, but in charting, with beautiful precision, its strange echoes and reverberations -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday * Summerscale is an exquisite storyteller. She is judicious in her use of detail, subtle in her unspoken connections between the past and the present... -- Daisy Goodwin * The Times * Simply superb -- Alexandra Harris * Guardian * As good as non-fiction could possibly get -- Victoria Hislop * Daily Mail * Mesmerising -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent * Her research is needle-sharp and her period detail richly atmospheric -- John Carey * Sunday Times *